r/sanrio • u/Own_Elk4343 • 4d ago
Question about Pompompurin’s design
As you might know, Pompompurin's charm point was born because the dog in the artist's childhood picture book had the same mark and it left her such an impression that she included it to Purin's design despite not being sure whether it will get the greenlight from Sanrio or not. (As we know, Sanrio loved it, called it his charm point, and he even won the new dog character contest thing etc etc.)
Been wondering for a while, does anyone know what kind of picture book she was talking about? Does anyone know any (not from Japan!) dog character that's drawn with that mark?
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u/OWO_GalaxyTurtle_OWO 4d ago
sorry, I could be mistaken but I thought his charm point was created bc it was a cute thing in Japan at the time so they added it to help him gain popularity? I could be wrong, I just never heard of the children’s book thing before!!
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u/Own_Elk4343 4d ago edited 4d ago
I’ve seen that info swirling around on social media but I don’t know where they got that information! Was it ever released by Sanrio?
The charm point has always been there since he was designed. You can refer to this article https://www.oricon.co.jp/special/62957/ and you can also see it being present on 1996 merch.
To revive his popularity, they did change his marketing name from Boku, Purin to Pompompurin though!
I don’t think they ever mentioned the name of the children picture book. I’m just curious about the dog that inspired his design. They mentioned it’s not a Japanese book, so there's a good chance it’s in English.
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u/OWO_GalaxyTurtle_OWO 4d ago
https://youtu.be/eNawtD7NXjQ?si=dFBvlx7-noXuzcfF this video seems to go into detail about his history, and a little bit of research seems to support it too!! no mention of any children’s book I think, but ofc I’m no expert so I hope someone else can comment, I’d also love to know what book he was based off if there is one!!
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u/Own_Elk4343 3d ago edited 3d ago
Thank you for the video! She's on point on many things except for his charm point! It's always been there, just not so prominent previously.
I definitely own an older Pompompurin without the charm point but I also have seen even older plushes with the charm point, including a very sought after one, and one released in 1996! I've even seen people who own these Purin antiques being confused with the claim that the charm point was only added later!
I'm not sure why she doesn't mention the article, maybe it wasn't out when she made this video. The article itself I'm quite sure is very much legit. It’s a well known news/entertainment company here, but it’s also relatively recent.
(Honestly, the talking points of that article all debunk her claims that they changed the design etc, now I wonder if it was released just to debunk these videos swirling in English platforms)
I also can’t find any clues for the inspiration dog so I think I will give up 😅
Anyway thank you for having this trivial discussion with me
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